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A gap in your garage door isn’t just an eyesore.
It can also put you and those you live with at risk of dangerous intruders and wandering animals (some of which may turn out to be pests).
If you have noticed that there is a gap in your garage door that needs adjusting, you will want to follow these steps on how to adjust a garage door gap to avoid any of the aforementioned troubles.
Check tracks.
Are your garage door’s vertical tracks stopping your door at a certain distance from the rubber stops?
You might need to slightly move them by loosening the mounting bolts, allowing the door to come closer to the rubber seal so that it can close as it is meant to.
Examine stops.
The rubber seal found across your overhead door’s edges serves as the stop.
It is possible that the gap in your garage door is caused by this stop being misaligned, meaning you’ll have to move it closer to where the gap is.
If you find that the stop itself is causing the gap (for example, if it no longer sits correctly on the ground), it may simply be facing the unavoidable effects of wear and tear from over the years. Replacing this rubber seal is relatively simple as you can simply purchase one and follow whatever instructions come with it.
Change limit switch settings.
A garage door’s limit switch is what controls where your door ought to stop moving when shut; your door’s gap may be caused by this limit switch being incorrectly set.
One way to ensure that your overhead door completely presses down on the rubber stop is to correctly adjust the limit switch, which can be found on your door opener.
Trimming the overhead door.
This method is only possible with wood garage doors that sit incorrectly in their frame.
Being wooden, they can be trimmed down with a circular saw or jigsaw to sit properly, both in their frame and on the ground.
Make sure to sand off the trimmed edges of the door before putting it back into the frame.
For those with doors that are not made of wood, unfortunately, there will be no need to know how to adjust a garage door gap as you will simply have to replace the entire door.
Do keep in mind that you may give us a call for any services you cannot conduct yourself and we will be more than glad to hear and help you out!
Install a threshold.
The installment of a garage door threshold is a pretty good solution for getting rid of any slight gaps at your garage door’s bottom.
They don’t take too much effort to install and can be purchased at just about any DIY shop.
Usually, this rubber threshold will already come with glue and a caulking gun, which you are of course meant to use to stick the item to the part of your garage floor that the door comes down on.
Once this threshold is set in place, you will have a secure barrier on the bottom of your garage door that takes up the space where the gap once was.
The only downside to this is that it can be a hassle when sweeping out or hosing down your garage area.
Apply extra concrete onto the floor.
The concrete floor beneath your garage and garage door may settle and sink throughout the passing of time, inevitably creating a gap that may slowly grow wider between the ground and the bottom of your door.
You can opt to add a further amount of concrete to your floor in order to raise it back to the level most appropriate for your garage door, helping you close up the problematic gap.
These are just a few basic tips on how to adjust a garage door gap.
If even after reading through this all you find that none of this advice can effectively get rid of the gap in your overhead door, you are better off calling a trustworthy repair company (like us) to identify what exactly your issue is and how to fix it.